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Social media in grass roots mobilisation

May 7, 2013 by Chi Tola (chitolaroberts@gmail.com @chitolani)

Chi Tola | credits: File copy

We all hear of grass roots support and mobilisation each time there is a campaign. During the last elections, we heard of ‘Keme 2 Keme’ (neighbour to neighbour). Grass roots mobilisation is a way of building community support for any type of change by creating awareness and using it to support an action like lawmaking. The more you mobilise and the bigger the movement, the greater chance you have to make an impact.

The social media is now a key platform with which elected officials or aspiring lawmakers can leverage their campaign supporters to become legislative and policy supporters.

With the 24-hour news cycle and year-round interest in political issues, you can’t but log on to the social media if you really want to achieve.

In order to help our politicians maximise positively their ability to mobilise grass roots supporters, I am focusing on some tips for them. Let’s have a look:

Be the information source

Information is the reason for communication. If you do not have the right information, you cannot communicate with the people. If you tell them what they already know and even better than you do, you have only powered trolls. So, you have to become the information source by sharing information and keeping people update-to-date on your plans, your issues, and what you are going to do.

The social media makes it extremely easy for you to build strong connections, keep them up-to-date, promote your issues, and share information. Make people feel free to come to you for information and let them know you will consistently provide information.

Set your goal

To inspire people to action, remember to set an objective or action plan. People need action items, so they can help advance change. Get others to help and tell them how you need their help. Give them different ways to help. Think about your political goals and translate them into actions that people can take.

Having people take the first step is usually the hardest part. So, consider lightweight actions, like tweets or likes, to make it easy for supporters to get involved. Get people to donate when you need money or volunteer when you need help. Encourage other people to take action on a political or social issue that is important to them. You can also ask people to register to vote and tell them to get their friends to vote.

Spread out your influence

Organise more people by growing your social media. It is when you are able to reach more people who have interest on your issues, and then you will inevitably come across good contacts with influence and power. You will not have these contacts until you start expanding your social media use and connecting with more people.

The social media makes for easy leveraging for your friends and connections to get the word out. Saturation is the in-thing, but saturate reasonably. The more people read and spread your message, the more eyes that will run across your message. You must follow! When you follow other people, organizations, political groups, and news sites they are more likely to pick up your messaging. Join groups on social media sites that are already involved in political or social issues or working to advance a cause. This will allow you to mobilize people that are already helping out similar causes.

Consistency

Commiserations! So you won the election, but did you remember to post an update thanking your supporters for their votes? Did you tell them what your next move is going to be? Your supporters deserve consistent communications through social media year around.

Take Mitt Romney for example. He only updated his Twitter once on election day and once the day after election. He did not share unique information and quickly became irrelevant as a source of up-to-date news. He rapidly lost social media connections at the rate of roughly 500 people per hour on the week after the election. You can avoid this if you are consistent with your social media. This just means that with social media out of sight, it is definitely out of mind. Keep the posts coming! Have a post election social media plan

Engage and reward participation

Use the social media to communicate with your grass roots network and to fire them up! Are people telling you what bothers them? Then, answer them. Are people telling you they will support your new legislation? Well answer them and let them know how they can help you! Consider your audience’s values and reward participation. You don’t have to spend a fortune as reward or incentive to your grass roots’ supporters. Be creative; develop ways to use social media to recognize supporters or to give them a more visible profile in your political endeavours.

This is not the end. After successfully mobilising your grass roots supporters, show that you are going to take action and make the kind of changes that people want.

Dear Writer, If your grassroot is Lagos Metropolitan and its environs its all good and rosy and your postulations can be tried but what do you do if your grassroot is Jigawa where there are places without telephone masts and you have to stand under a certain tree to make call .Aside from this, even if everywhere has all the internet and the latest 4G Nigeria has a 1001 other factors that play in when it comes to elections. Sometimes when a new technology gets to town you forget there are more people in rural areas in Nigeria than townships.You dont have a business comparing Nigerian elections and the use of social media with America and citing Mitt Romney example. Let me ask you a simple question, can an Aba Man with all the Social Media might of Obama win a governorship election in Lagos. Can A muslim with the same circumstance win a councillor-ship election in Aba. Please there are places for social media in Nigeria at least ranting on punch blog,and celebrity gossip and telling porkies all over the place but when it comes to matters of serious community change and development, we go back to our primordial tendencies. America has one major language and everybody also understand other non spoken languages and nuances of the language in America. In Nigeria our ethnicities, religion, and other bias comes into place coupled with the language brouhaha
What Information is a Nigerian Politician going to share on Social Media? I will leave you here but when you are writing its good you understand your community or the majority of the populace and not the 2,000 punch readers who may not even be in Nigeria or mostly resides in Lagos and Abuja.

For your information the country that has almost the same circumstances with you is India and you will do well to learn from them and not America

Thanks for trying

Dr Olubukunola A Morgan MBBS

Chitola, your insight and analysis about GRASSROOTS MOBILISATION is impeccable; except for one omission. That is an assumption that the CHANCERS that populate the Nigerian political arena are up to scratch. These are people who do not even believe in the DEMOCRATIC process. As far as they are concerned Democracy starts with winning elections. WHY BOTHER WITH IDEOLOGY, PROGRAMMES or MANIFESTOES, when you can RIG elections or STUFF ballot boxes with the connivance of whosoever be the VAGABOND IN POWER. Tragically this theme cuts across the whole rotten spectrum. However, it must be admitted that currently the worst offender is the RULING PDP. In a situation where the DEMOCRATIC PROCESS is determined by the RULE OF THE JUNGLE, where most of these predators belong, is it any wonder that eventual OUTCOME is BOKO HARAM, DESTRUCTION OF OIL PIPELINES and award of massive contracts to deter the known perpetrators from committing ARSON. In turn this leads to BUNKERING, and those responsible at the NNPC; from the TOP down joining in the RACE to personally ENRICH themselves. One can however see a glimmer of hope in the PEOPLE EXPOSURE to the social media SPACE. THE CURRENT AWARENESS NOW IS SUCH THAT SHOULD ANYBODY TRY SOME KINDA MAGO-MAGO come 2015, HE MIGHT AS WELL TORCH THE FUSE TO THE GUN POWDER. THEN AS FELA WELL PUT IT…EVERYTHING GO SCATTER, SCATTER.